Long Story

That’s the finding of new research from Brigham Young University in Utah, which says that those who run while under chronic stress can help shore up their memory. Specifically, the study, newly published in the journal of Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, finds that running mitigates the negative impacts chronic stress has on the hippocampus, the part of the brain that looks after learning and memory.

Inside the hippocampus, memory formation and recall work best when the synapses or connections between neurons are strengthened over time, a process called long-term potentiation (LTP). But chronic or prolonged stress weakens this process, ultimately impacting memory. The BYU paper found that when exercise co-occurs with stress, LTP levels are not decreased but remain normal.

"Exercise is a simple and cost-effective way to eliminate the negative impacts on memory of chronic stress," study lead author Jeff Edwards said in a news release. Edwards is an associate professor of physiology and developmental biology at BYU.

Edwards’s study involved experiments on mice, with one group of rodents using running wheels over a four week period, averaging five kilometers a day. A second group was left sedentary. Half of each group was then exposed to stress-inducing situations, with researchers later carrying out out electrophysiology experiments to measure LTP levels across all the animals’ brains.

It turned out the stressed mice who had exercised exhibited significantly greater LTP than the stressed mice who did not. Also, researchers found that stressed mice who exercised performed just as well on a maze-running experiment as non-stressed mice who exercised. Finally, exercising mice made significantly fewer memory errors in the maze than sedentary mice.

Stress is a major health issue across developed countries. The American Psychological Association estimated in 2015 that 37% of U.S. adults feel overwhelmed by stress. Anything to help ameliorate that is a positive.

"The ideal situation for improving learning and memory would be to experience no stress and to exercise," Edwards says. "Of course, we can't always control stress in our lives, but we can control how much we exercise. It's empowering to know that we can combat the negative impacts of stress on our brains just by getting out and running."

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If a mouse runs for five kilometers to get these effects, how far does a human have to run?

Drop This Fact

Statistics gathered in 2014 by the American Institute of Stress found that 77% of people regularly experience physical symptoms caused by stress.